Her poem “Caged Bird” played an important role in the recognition, expansion, and responsibility of the emancipation of Black people. It highlighted the divergence between the minds of those ...

A poet, memoirist, and civil rights activist, she had gained national acclaim with her autobiography I Know Why the Caged ...

authored the international bestseller I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, worked alongside Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, and recited one of her poems at a US presidential inauguration.

A few months after her arrival, Angelou experienced an ordeal that she has never been able to forget -she writes about this in I Know why the Caged Bird Sings ... and recited poetry but started ...